


The Merman Who Hated the Sea

by junko



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Drowning, M/M, Mermen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 02:23:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1328380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time there was a merman who hated the sea.  One day he met a human boy who loved the water more than life itself.  This is their story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Merman Who Hated the Sea

Once upon a time there was a merman who hated the sea. It was dark and deep and endless and it whimsically stole the lives of fishermen and boaters. You see, unlike the rest of his people, this merman was fond of humans and it scared him to know that, like all merfolk, one day, his love would lure an unsuspecting soul to their doom.

He never expected to find a human boy who loved the water more than life itself.

But one day he did and this is their story.

#

Not everything about the sea made Makoto cringe. He loved to swim. The feeling of cutting through the surf like a torpedo, his black-and-white orca-tail slashing up and down, made him smile. He loved to float on his back and stare up at the sun, or perch on a rock and watch the way the light pulsed and glittered on the ever-moving waves.

He was sitting on his favorite boulder perch when he met the boy.

Though the spring had coaxed a bit of warmth to the stone beneath his tail, the air was still chilly with the remains of winter. It was not a day he expected to see anyone. The water was still far too cold for humans.

But the boy was in the water. Swimming.

At first, in fact, Makoto thought the boy must be one of his own people, given the graceful way he moved. Most humans fought the water, like it was an enemy or something to be conquered, their arms slicing and legs kicking like they were fighting for their lives. This swimmer, however, flowed with the ocean, like he, himself, was made of the same element.

So, without thinking, Makoto swam out to join the boy. He bumped him from underneath and rolled around his body, a greeting of one merfolk to another. It was only coming around that Makoto saw his mistake: legs!

If he felt anything at all in the icy water, the boy seemed unperturbed by the slickness of Makoto’s tail as it wrapped around him. When he came up beside the boy, he asked, “Aren’t you cold?”

The truth was the boy’s lips had an unhealthy blue tint to them already. His teeth chattered when he said, “I c-c-couldn’t wait.”

“For what?”

“To swim!” the boy said as if it were the most obvious answer, ever. 

Treading water, Makoto looked at the boy. They appeared to be close to the same age, though merfolk aged differently than humans, so it was hard to tell. The boy’s hair, wet and plastered to his head, was the color of a starless sky at midnight; his eyes reminded Makoto of the crystalline blue water trapped in a tidal pool.

It may seem as if this were love at first sight, but, truthfully, though he was captivated by the boy’s beauty, Makoto thought perhaps this young man was a little addled from having swum so long in the freezing water.

“If you swim with me to the shore,” Makoto said, “I could build you a fire.”

The boy looked so sad at the idea of leaving the water, it was like Makoto had asked him to kick his best friend.

“We could race,” Makoto offered to soften the apparent hardship.

That idea seemed to interest the boy. “All right.”

And with that, they were off. Makoto thought to hold back, but the boy bounded through the water like a dolphin. Makoto even had to push himself to keep up. When the boy glanced back with a challenging look, Makoto returned a smile and kicked his tail even swifter. Soon, it became more than just a race. They darted back and forth, around and around each other, gliding and slicing through the water, as though at play. 

When they reached the shore, they were both panting, and Makoto’s heart soared at finally being able to share the joy of swimming on the surface.

Makoto hauled himself onto the beach with a mighty push of his tail. This cove was a regular visiting place of his, protected on three sides by the cliffs it was the perfect place to rest a while and warm up. Some time ago, Makoto discovered that he could get around fairly well on the land. He was no more awkward than the seals and he had clever hands with which to steady himself or gather driftwood for a fire.

The boy stood in the surf with wide, unblinking eyes.

But, if he had any other comment, the boy kept it to himself. Once the fire was blazing, the boy cautiously came near to where Makoto had managed to prop himself up against his large dorsal fin in a close approximation of sitting. 

Hunching down, the boy wrapped his arms around his knees and looked out at the waves that crashed on the beach. It was late afternoon and the sun had begun to sink towards the horizon. After a long moment, the boy said, “How did you start the fire? I didn’t see any matches.”

“Magic,” Makoto said. He glanced at the boy expecting him to wonder at a merman who knew forbidden fire magic, but instead the boy just nodded, as though the simplest answer was sufficient.

The boy flicked back a flop of hair that had fallen in front of his eyes and asked sincerely, “Can you make some mackerel appear for dinner?”

Makoto laughed. “I wish!”

They sat in silence for a while, though Makoto could feel the boy’s eyes on the long curve of his tail, the wide sweep of his fluke, and the tall peak of his dorsal fin. Makoto felt a little exposed sitting like he was, with the white “v’ markings of the underbelly of his tail so clearly outlining his genital slit and anus, though he had to remind himself humans were physically very different. Probably the boy had no idea.

In fact, the boy clearly had something else on his mind. “You live in the water all the time.” 

The way the boy said it, it sounded like he though he thought that were heaven on earth. 

Makoto nodded, and, just to see the boy’s eyes sparkle, he added, “Day and night. Always.”

“Wow.”

“What’s your name?”

“Haruka, but most people just call me Haru,” the boy said.

Makoto introduced himself and then they fell into another companionable silence, the only sounds were the popping of the wood and the waves washing against the sand. On the cliff above them, cars rushed by along the highway. Across the bay, streetlights blinked on as the sun continued to drop lower, swallowed by the sea.

Makoto watched the boy, Haru, and his mind filled with questions. _Why are you out here alone? What do you think of me? Shouldn’t you be more shocked by my tail? Have you met a mermaid or a merman before? Where is your family? Do you have many friends? Could I be one of them?_

But it seemed rude to interrupt this thoughtful, contemplative boy, who watched the ocean with such deep and intense longing. So Makoto sat with Haru quietly, though his mind swirled like a whirlpool and his heart pounded unusually fast in his chest.

Then, as if answering some unheard call, Haru stood up. “It was nice meeting you,” he said politely. “I would like to swim with you again. Will you be here tomorrow?”

Makoto’s mouth was dry, but he managed a nod. “Yes.”

#

On his way back to his pod, one of the shark-tailed boys shouted, “Out warning sailors again, Makoto?”

Makoto ignored the taunt. 

Instead he hurried home. He wanted to find his father and ask him what it was like to drown and if he ever regretted his life under the sea.

Makoto was so lost in his thoughts that he hardly noticed his friend, Nagisa, until the little penguin-shifter bowled into him. “Makoto-chan!” Nagisa chirped, “Where have you been all day?”

As if Nagisa didn’t know that Makoto spent most days hiding from the sea! That was how they met, after all. 

In fact, Makoto headed towards the surface so they could talk. The little penguin couldn’t stay under for very long, even though he flew through the water as easily as any other bird through air. And, unlike many of his fellow merfolk, Makoto, too, needed to breathe, every now and then.

Once they broke the surface, Makoto explained, “I met someone very unusual. A human boy.”

“Oooooh,” Nagisa said, and flipped in the water happily. “Can I meet him, too?”

“I suppose,” Makoto said, finding it strange that he had a pang of sadness at the idea of having to share his ‘haul.’ But, he covered this odd feeling with a bright smile. “You’d like him, I think. He didn’t even blink when I showed him my fire powers.”

“Really?” Nagisa was intrigued now. He clapped his flippers together as they bobbed at the water’s surface. “What’s his name?”

“Haru.”

“Haru-chan! Haru-chan!” Nagisa repeated as he waddled off toward his island. 

Makoto watched, shaking his head fondly. Though he was a little worried. If Nagisa wanted to, he could leave behind his penguin skin, as easily as taking off a tuxedo, and walk on land with Haru.

Something Makoto could never do.

#

Makoto managed to find a little time to talk to his father after dinner, when the sea was black as night. Outside the underwater cavern that was their home, they drifted in the evening current, watching the bioluminescent parade of glowing squid and other twilight creatures heading to the surface to feed.

“Beautiful,” his father sighed. Gesturing at the glittering display, “I never grow tired of it.”

Like most mermen, Makoto’s father was naked to the waist, his human clothes having long ago rotted off. The netting and seaweed that tangled his legs made a kind of flipper, though Makoto could still see the shape of the human appendages through the holes unfilled by barnacles and starfish and other small animals and fish that clustered near to the net. His brown hair, like Makoto’s, had a greenish tinge to it. His dead eyes had a whitish film over them, and his lips were so blue they were almost black.

Makoto’s mother had taken his younger siblings off to bed, so Makoto screwed up his courage and asked, “What was it like… when you met mom, when you… were lost at sea?”

A haunted look crossed his father’s face. “I’d never been more terrified in my whole life. The ship was suddenly just gone, as though the sea had open its mouth and swallowed her whole--all around us was storm and wreckage and blood. The sharks were coming… I knew it and I thought: ‘take a good look around, this is where you die.’ But then your mother appeared…”

Makoto nodded, he’d heard a little of this. Mother had sung his father to sleep—and letting go of the shattered raft, he’d slipped into the sea, falling into her arms… forever. “Do you remember what it felt like?”

He shook his head. “I’m glad I don’t. Your mother did me a kindness.”

Makoto said nothing, but his stomach clenched. Sometimes he felt his lungs burn when he’d been under the water too long, so he knew there was pain. But, he wondered about the rest. Because, although he’d no idea how it felt, Makoto had seen men drowned. 

When he was young, a boat had capsized near where he and a friend were playing. They were so little that at first they thought the humans had come to join their game. But, what they first mistook for a dance, which they’d tried to imitate, quickly turned into something dark and macabre. The bubbles stopped and their newfound ‘playmates’ sunk to the bottom, never moving again.

So haunted by this, Makoto had followed the bodies as they washed to the shore. From a distance, he’d seen the tears and wailing screams of discovery. When he was spotted on a nearby rock, Makoto had heard the blaming anguish. They’d pointed to him and shouted about how the mermaids must have done this and what evil creatures they were. 

The lights of the rising deep sea creatures, even now, reminded Makoto of the funeral procession, that long, sorrowful line of men and women, each carrying a torch they extinguished in the sea. Each light, plunging into the icy water, had felt like a stab at his heart.

He would never forget it.

It was that day Makoto promised himself he would never do this to a human. He would never sing someone to a watery grave. 

In fact, he’d resolved to never again swim idly by while people drowned. But, that part of the promise had proved impossibly heartbreaking. That was when he’d learned to hate the sea with all his heart. The ocean took too many. He could never pull them all to the surface, and sometimes they would fight him so hard, he couldn’t hold on, no matter how many tears he shed or how valiantly he tried.

“Are you happy here, at least,” Makoto asked his father.

The answer took too long in coming and told a dark truth: “I love you kids and your mother.”

#

Makoto returned to his special cove the next morning, early, hoping to catch sight of Haru going to work or school, whatever it was humans did on land. Instead, what he saw made his heart nearly stop.

Haru was in the water with one of the shark-boys. The shark merman coaxed Haru further and further out to sea. Makoto could hear his song. The shark sang, “Swim, swim with me. I will show you something you’ve never seen before.”

Though Makoto had a kind heart for humans, he often felt differently about his own kind. Remember: orcas are not whales at all, but dolphins that kill and eat other dolphins and whales. Whale killers. Killer whales. 

Thus, Makoto took off toward the shark boy like a shot. Catching him unawares, Makoto tackled the other merman and dragged him deep underwater. Entwining the mershark in his great tail, Makoto held him fast and unmoving.

Let it also be remembered: if sharks stop swimming, they die.

“Let me up!” the shark boy snarled. His sharp teeth gnashed, trying to find flesh to sink into. He bit, but teeth only nipped at the tough skin of Makoto’s longer tail, already growing weak.

The words ‘No’ were forming on Makoto’s lips, when he saw that Haru was watching him. Haru could say nothing under the water, but his eyes clearly pleaded for the shark boy’s life. 

Was it too late? Was Haru under the mer-shark’s spell?

The mer-shark was struggling pitifully now. In a minute, he would be dead. 

Makoto saw Haru looking at the shark-boy the same way Makoto looked at Haru. Seeing that, Makoto lost his will. He let go. 

Without even a backwards glance, the shark fled. His slashing tail kicked up debris from the ocean floor. The shark boy’s pride had been injured and that was the sort of wound that cut a shark deeply and from which he might never recover.

Once back at the surface, Makoto was no longer sure what to say. He wanted to explain that he’d been trying to save Haru’s life, and that sharks like that were no-good users. But, Makoto also knew that once you heard a merperson’s song, no amount of warning could change a person’s mind.

Haru treaded water. “His name is Rin,” Haru said. In the far distance, a shark fin could be seen retreating. “He said he would show me something special. I knew he meant to drown me. But, I wanted to go. I still want to go.”

Makoto shook his head. He wanted this special boy as a friend, but he thought of his father’s dead, empty eyes. There had to be another way.

Just then, Nagisa waved to them from the shore. “Makoto-chan! Haru-chan!”

Haru turned. “Why is he calling me that? I don’t know him.”

“That’s Nagisa,” Makoto explained. “He’s like that with everyone.”

“He’s your friend?” Haru was staring at Nagisa’s legs. Nagisa was completely naked. He’d stripped from his penguin skin and walked on land as a human. His blond hair was like a short, curly mass of seaweed and he seemed delighted by everything he encountered. Instead of his usual waddle, he skipped and twirled as he chased a butterfly that fluttered by.

“You know selkies?” Makoto asked, referring to the magical seal people who could shed their leathery skins to live among humans. When Haru nodded, Makoto explained, “Nagisa is kind of like that, only he has a tuxedo he hides.”

“A tuxedo?”

“He’s a penguin.”

“Oh.” Once again, Haru seemed strangely unimpressed.

“Haru-chan! Haru-chan!” Nagisa waved from the shore, bobbing back and forth more like his animal-self.

“Why does he know my name?” Haru asked, starting to head in the direction of land in a lazy sidestroke.

Following, Makoto bobbed under the water to hide his blush. “Because I told him about you.”

#

They gathered at Makoto’s favorite cove and made another fire. Nagisa talked non-stop. 

“Do you go to school? I think I want to go to school. Maybe I can find someone to be my friend there.”

“You can’t just collect people like that,” Makoto admonished with a gentle smile.

“Oh, I bet I can!” Nagisa said, and then looked around as though to find a person hiding under a rock. Above them, a jogger went by on the cliff-side path. “There’s one! I’ll go get him!”

“Wait, what?” Makoto reached to try to stop him, but Nagisa was gone off at a run, waving after the runner to stop and talk. Makoto gave Haru an embarrassed smile. “Well, that’s Nagisa. He’s on a mission now.”

Haru gave a little sad smile in return. His eyes were on the ocean again, as if searching for the sign of a sharp dorsal fin.

The song will wear off eventually, Makoto started to say, but it was clear that was not what Haru wanted to hear. So, instead, Makoto assured him, “I’m sure he’ll come back for you.”

Haru said nothing more than a sad nod.

#

Even though Makoto knew that Haru’s heart was lost to the shark, Rin, he showed up faithfully every morning and every night. They would often eat mackerel together, grilled over the fire they would build in Makoto’s favorite little cove. 

Haru seemed less interested in swimming. Makoto thought, perhaps, Haru was afraid of going in now, afraid that he’d purposely stop swimming and drown himself in order to be with Rin. 

It made Makoto sad, and he wished he could offer Haru some solace beyond friendship.

But at least their friendship grew. Slowly Haru began to open up and they really began to talk, about everything, even mermaid’s songs and how Makoto hated the death that the sea brought to humankind and about how Makoto's father used to be human until he drowned and how that had trapped him at the bottom of the sea forever.

Nagisa eventually joined them in the evenings, bringing along his ‘catch,’ a young man name Rei, who seemed very baffled to have found Nagisa attached to him. “Naked! He was naked,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “What else could I do? Of course I took him home and gave him some clothes.”

“And then we went shopping!” Nagisa said, clapping his hands. “Oh, and we had coffee!”

“Not that he needed any of that,” Rei muttered, and they all laughed.

They became quite the quartet, the four friends, but every once in a while the conversation would dry up when a single shark dorsal would glide by in the shallows.

#

Just when Makoto had begun to hope that the shark’s song was fading from Haru’s mind, Makoto came upon Haru in the water again one morning. The mer-shark was bumping into him, hard enough to make him stumble in the shallows. 

“Swim for me,” Rin demanded.

Haru said nothing, though Makoto could see the desire in Haru’s eyes even from a distance. 

Rin had pulled himself up out of the water, perhaps to strike, but he saw Makoto and turned tail and swam off like a shot.

“He’s hurt,” Haru said. “I think I hurt him.”

Makoto shook his head. “No, it’s just his pride.”

But Haru didn’t hear. “I do want to swim with him, but now I think…” Haru looked over his shoulder where Nagisa and Rei were watching, having brought the usual picnic basket for breakfast. “Now I think I want to swim with all of you.”

Makoto smiled. Haru had something to live for. Beckoning everyone into the water, they splashed and played the morning away.

#

But it was Nagisa who came up with a better solution. 

They sat on a rock in the sunshine waiting for their human friends. The summer was now full upon them. The morning was already hot, and the salty air and ocean spray felt cool against their skin.

“I really like Rei, but he can’t swim… not really. He kind of sucks at it, honestly, though he does try and I find that very cute.” Nagisa took a breath and shrugged. “But, that doesn’t matter to me. I can follow him here, on land. But you… I want Haru to swim like he wants to, forever. Why don’t I give him my skin?”

“Would that work?”

Nagisa shrugged. “It would have to be altered. You’d have to see the sea witch.”

The sea witch. 

Makoto’s heart thudded wildly. She lived in a shipwreck, deep in the ocean’s depths, a dark, frightening place. It was deep, deeper than Makoto had ever dared to go. If he stayed too long, he could drown. 

But, with Nagisa’s skin, Haru could have the ocean forever and not have to die. “I’ll go.”

#

Makoto took Nagisa’s penguin tuxedo with him and, after surfacing to suck in the deepest breath he’d ever taken, swam to the sea witch’s abode. The wreckage sat at the bottom of the sea, alone in the murky, twilight waters, surrounded by a large expanse of sandy sea bottom.

An old-fashioned wooden ship with sails, it could have been Makoto’s father’s boat. Regardless, it reminded Makoto of him, the way tattered sails and netting drifted in the current, like a fluttering, ragged shroud. The sides of the ancient boat were covered in barnacles. Tiny clouds of fish pulsed in and out, like the breath of the undead.

Steeling himself, Makoto swam forward cautiously. 

Hammerhead sharks circled the wreckage, but they gave Makoto only a curious, cursory glance as he squeezed in through the broken gap in the schooner’s side. 

What little light there had been disappeared. Makoto had to feel his way in until his eyes adjusted. His hands closed around something brittle and slick. Makoto thought he could make out the dull white of bones. A skeleton! Pulling away sharply caused the remains to collapse and seem to dance in the water before drifting down.

It was too much. The dancing of the bones reminded Makoto too much of the men he saw drown. He opened his mouth to scream and air rushed out. 

Precious air!

Seeing the bubbles, he quickly closed his mouth. But, Makoto already started to feel lightheaded. His own body grew slack and he began to sink. 

Will I know what it’s like to drown finally? Makoto wondered as his eyes started to roll up.

A powerful grip closed around his wrist, pulling him upright. He was slammed against the wall of the ship, forcing water into his lungs. 

Makoto’s eyes flew open see the shark boy’s face, inches from his own. Makoto choked on the water, but he forced himself to hold on to the air he had left. His mind started a frantic calculation. Ten more minutes? Fifteen?

“What are you doing here?” Rin demanded. His hands bruisingly tight on Makoto’s shoulders, Rin seemed ready to slam Makoto back into the wall again.

But Makoto gripped his arm. “I’ve come to see the sea witch.” Rin’s eyes stayed hard and cold, until Makoto added, “For Haru.”

“Hmph, why would I care about him?” Rin snorted. All the same, he loosened his grip and let Makoto go. Turning away, he swam down a narrow corridor. As he moved away, he said, “If you want to see the witch, it’s your funeral.”

Makoto picked up Nagisa’s skin from where he’d dropped it in his fright, and hurried after the shark’s slashing tail.

Rin led Makoto deeper into the belly of the ship. They passed a ghostly galley. It’s flooring tipped at an unnaturally steep angle, tables and chairs a jumble in the corner. Broken bits of plates and teacups lay buried in silt that had drifted in. A human’s skeletal reached out towards them from a cupboard. A school of brightly colored fish darted through the rotting cabinetry. 

In no time, they reached the witch’s lair. 

Makoto’s lungs felt heavy, but he was determined to try. He knelt before the sea witch, her back to Makoto, where she sat watching mer-shark-boys swimming. When she turned around, Makoto had to stop a gasp that would have lost him more air. She was just a young girl! Younger than he!

And, it was quite obvious by the color of her maroon hair that she was Rin’s sister.

But… quite curiously, she was not a mer-shark. In fact, with her legs, she seemed human. How could she breathe?

She seemed to see the questions in Makoto’s eyes. “I’m Gou. Our father was obsessed with being the strongest mershark in the sea. So, our mother thought to trade her Voice for his strength. But, she made a bad bargain with the dark ones. She was too far from the shore when she became human. I was born to a drowned woman on the surf—half-in, half-out of the sea. Now I walk between the worlds.”

A horrible story! But, Makoto stayed focused, “Can you make this fit a man?” he asked. “A human boy who would chose a life in the sea, of his own free will.”

“Nothing is free,” Rin snarled beside his sister. “Make him pay.”

She turned to her brother, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears and her voice tremulous, “You mean like our mother did? And all for what? For all his strength, father had an empty heart.”

“Like a good shark,” Rin snapped.

The sea witch said nothing, only turned to go back to admiring her mermen.

The pressure in Makoto’s lungs continued to grow, but he glared at Rin. “If you’re trying to be like your father, you fail. I know how you feel about Haru. I can see it. It hurts me, but I can’t deny it. You love him, like I love him.”

At first Makoto thought he’d gotten through to Rin, but then his face hardened and his eyes deadened. He came after Makoto in a frenzy.

“No!” Gou shouted.

But, the impact had done it. The last of the air was gone from Makoto. He began to drown.

#

It was, Makoto thought, a far more pleasant way to die than he’d imagined. 

It hurt so much at first, like his chest was collapsing while on fire, but then… then there’d been the sensation of floating.

And the sound of crashing waves.

And the water tickling his ear as air was forced into his lungs.

He coughed, vomiting water. 

When he was able to look around, he saw something miraculous. Rin had carried him to shore. Haru knelt over Makoto and had been breathing his own breath into him. Nagisa and Rei were there, too, looking worried, teary eyed, and holding hands.

Nagisa came up to where Makoto lay on his side and showed him the gifts from the sea witch, “Rin brought everything. We have to sew the alterations ourselves, but if we work together, Haru can be in the water in a week!”

“Together?” Makoto asked weakly, his voice scratchy, his eyes on Rin. “Why did you save me?”

“Because you risked your life for Haru,” Rin said. He bent his head and his longish, maroon hair fell in front of his eyes. “Gou was right. All I ever wanted was to be strong like my father. But, he lost everything, even the one he loved, my mother, just to try to gain something he never really achieved. I wanted to be more like her, more like you.”

“Like me?” Makoto was astonished.

“Yes,” Rin said, glancing up sincerely. “One day I want to be worthy of Haru’s love, too.”

Haru’s love?

Makoto looked and Haru was nodding. “Let’s get started,” he said. “I want to swim with all of you as soon as possible.”

Soon enough, they did.

It should be said that they all lived happily ever after. They did. Nothing bad ever happened to them again. Some days there were small adventures, but nothing horrible ever came of them.

And they swam, always together.

**Author's Note:**

> What the hey, I just wrote a fic that has no BLEACH in it. Something is wrong with me...


End file.
